The fear of cult guys in our various tertiary institutions of learning is the beginning of wisdom. The universities and other citadels of learning have been turned into a breeding place for men and women of devious acts. You have to watch the way you walk, the places you eat, parties you attend, where you hang out and the friends you keep on campus because all these trivial things can spell doom if not carefully handled.
Nigeria is not the only country with this embarrassing challenge but I think the time to arrest the situation is long overdue because it has gotten out of hand and nothing seems to work out anymore. If efforts are not put in place to ensure that the situation improves, the country’s educational system would be so contaminated that no one would even contemplate sending their wards to school.
‘ In 1952, future-Nobel Prize winning author Soyinka and a group of six friends formed the Pyrate Confraternity at the elite University College, Ibadan, then part of the University of London. According to the Pyrates, the “Magnificent Seven”, as they called themselves, observed that the university was populated with wealthy students associated with the colonial powers and a few poorer students striving in manner and dress to be accepted by the more advantaged students, while social life was dictated by tribal affiliation. Soyinka would later note that the Pyrates wanted to differentiate themselves from “stodgy establishment and its pretentious products in a new educational institution different from a culture of hypocritical and affluent middleclass, different from alienated colonial aristocrats”. The organization adopted the motto “Against all conventions”, the skull and crossbones as their logo, while members adopted confraternity names such as “Cap’n Blood” and “Long John Silver”. When fellow students protested a proposal to build a railroad across the road leading to the university, fearing that easier transportation would make the university less exclusive, the Pyrates successfully ridiculed the argument as elitist. Roughly analogous to the fraternities and sororities of North America, the Pyrates Confraternity proved popular among students, even after the original members moved on. Membership was open to any promising male student, regardless of tribe or race, but selection was stringent and most applicants were denied. For almost 20 years, the Pyrates were the only confraternity on Nigerian campuses.
In the late 1960s, campuses were embroiled in the civil war in the country. Details are contested, but it appears that in 1972 Bolaji Carew and several others were expelled from the Pyrates for failing to meet expected standards. In reaction to this and other events, the Pyrates registered themselves under the name National Association of Seadogs (NAS) and, at least one source states, pulled the confraternity out of the universities. Carew went on to found the Buccaneers Confraternity (also called the National Associations of Sea Lords), largely copying the Seadogs’ structure, symbols and ceremonies. A major impetus for the creation of new confraternities was the fact that members of the new groups simply did not meet the high academic and intellectual standards set by the Seadogs, and thus considered the original organization to be elitist. However, Soyinka would later point to individuals who became accustomed to exerting power in the rigidly hierarchical confraternity, and were unwilling to give it up, as to blame for the initial schism.
The coup of Ibrahim Babangida in 1983 caused a large degree of political tension. Military leaders, beginning in the 1980s, began to see the confraternities as a check on the student unions and university staff, who were the only organized groups opposing military rule. The confraternities were thus provided payment and weapons to use against student activists, though the weapons were often used in deadly inter-confraternity rivalries. Sociologist Emeka Akudi noted that some university vice-chancellors protected confraternities which were known to be violent and used them to attack students deemed troublesome.
Now, the question on the lips of many is “how did campus confraternities that started with a positive intention turn out to be something satanic and chaotic? The country has myriads of problems but education and the youths should be given preferential attention because these two go a long way to determine the future of a country. “Youths are the leaders of tomorrow” and “no country can develop more than its level of education”.
The home is of utmost importance, its importance cannot be overemphasized, the parents of a child are his number one role model because he learns a lot of things from them, they provide ways to behave, how to do things amongst others which he make use of while growing up. The father is like a bible to the male child and he always wants to do things the way his father has done them or is doing them, so if the father is parody of good behavior, the child is likely to become a delinquent. A father that smokes and drinks irresponsibly is in directly telling his child that a wayward lifestyle is nothing to shy away from. The correlation of an aggressive father and a combatant son is so enormous, research figures are alarming. The same goes for the mother and the female child. Proper upbringing of a child depends largely on the parent or guardian; they supply the recipes that shape the characters and characteristics of the child.
The friends your ward keeps should bother you a lot because second on my list is Peer\Play group. This group of people are next in line. “Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are or who you want to be” Parents are advised to be vigilant, go the extra mile to investigate the type and kind of friends he keeps.
The society is also not helping matters, the rise of violent campus confraternities is just a revelation of what is obtainable in the Nigerian society at large. The country is morally and socially decayed, good deeds are alien to our society and that makes doing the right thing a herculean task. The society is promoting immoral behavior and the good ones or those trying to lay a good example are forced to go with the flow or how else do you describe a situation where studying for examinations is highly discouraged by the fact that your course mates got higher grades because they were able to bribe the lecturer? That would only leave you with bitter regrets and you would be discouraged from studying for the next examinations since you now know what others did to pass. There are cases where parents would bribe teachers because they want their children to get the first position at all cost.
However, campus confraternities’ induced violence did not start today and it would not be nice to say that the challenge would just disappear like that. Gradual progress is what is envisaged by this writer. A mass re-orientation of students is also urgently needed, staylites and freshers (freshers especially) should be informed about how cultism can make dreams not to come true, they should be fed with all the necessary information (backed with valid and visible proof) on how cultism has cut short the promising life of many? Another way the campuses can be cleansed is if the authorities overhaul the system.
The Nigerian education system is one of the worst in the world, one of the reasons why none of our universities is ranked among the top 100 of the world. The universities and other tertiary institutions are sacred places and as such should not be treated with levity. The need for a proper and total overhaul of the system cannot be over-emphasized. The authorities are charged with this responsibility because to make cultism unattractive and an unnecessary option, there must be improved facilities and living conditions on campuses so as to minimize perceived strain in the social system which underlines cultism on our campuses. Our institutions must be overhauled in order to be capable of providing for all who live within them and be able to correct the injustices against any student or group of students by peaceful and lawful means. We cannot ensure domestic tranquility unless we establish justice in a truly democratic society. Nigerian students should therefore, as a matter of urgency, be engaged in the total recrimination of corruption, neo-colonial enslavement, jaundiced and retrogressive economic policies, ethnic manipulation, and electoral malpractices that pervade and predominate our country’s landscape as well as the unwarranted destabilization and intimidation of the nation’s academia by the pseudo-bourgeois and hegemonic class of ‘politricians’.
Academic freedom, autonomy and proper democratization of education will ensure a full participation of students and other marginalized segments of the academic community in the process of policy formulation and decision making. It is my sincere opinion that Nigerian students should agitate ceaselessly for independent student unionism as well as ensure that credible leaders are elected to champion a new orientation for students on all Nigerian campuses. At interpersonal levels, students should encourage cultists through seminars, symposia, workshops, fora and group discussion to drop their counter-productive exhibitions and channel their energies to progressive activism. In this way, students can redirect their energies towards capacity building that will ultimately usher in a virile society. Students should also encourage mass participation in sporting and other extra-curricular activities as a way of keeping body and soul busy at all times. Stiffer penalties should be meted out at cultists. This is another way of discouraging cultism- cultism should be made punishable by death. This inhumane judgment hopefully would deter those nursing the interest to shy away from it. The Obafemi Awolowo university massacre in February, 1999 provides abundant reference.
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